


Cuts

by MUSEquera



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:17:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3705063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MUSEquera/pseuds/MUSEquera





	Cuts

A slight metallic noise brings me up from my self absorption as I mechanically stand at the kitchen sink washing up the single set of dishes, trying to fill time after yet another lonely evening picking desultorily at my food. 

The noise sounds again, this time clearly recognisable as a key turning in the lock, and I turn away from the sink, the wineglass I'm holding slipping through nerveless fingers to crash at my feet, shattering into a million shards on the tiles. 

No. It can't be. In the silence that follows, I shake my head, refusing to let the tiny spark of hope kindle in my chest, but still I listen intently, barely daring to breathe until the sound comes again, followed by a rattle of keys and the sound of the front door opening.

Hope becomes an all-consuming flame, spurring me into action against my better judgement, and before I can hold myself in check I'm across the kitchen and out of the door into the hallway, not quite sure of what to do next, all breath driven out of me by the sight of him framed in the doorway.

He stands stock still as I rush in, his hand, still holding his keys, frozen half-way to the bowl on the little table by the door. He looks tired, older, dark circles under his eyes marring the gold of his skin, and he's lost weight he really couldn't afford to lose in the two weeks he's been away. 

"He's back." I think inanely, and then my lips are framing that thought in an almost inaudible whisper, relief and joy that he's here, uncertainty and fear that he may not be staying, constricting my throat, "You're back." 

He flinches at the sound of my voice as if I'd slapped him, and looks pleadingly at me across the hallway saying, uncertainly, "Is this ok?" and then, turning half-way towards the landing, goes on, "I can leave if you don't want me here."

"No, please, don't," I blurt out, my hand reaching out as if to hold him there, "please, stay." I take a step towards him, wanting to touch him, to reassure myself that he's really here, and cry out at the unexpected, searing pain lancing through my foot. 

Unbalanced, I would have fallen on my face if he hadn't been already dashing towards me, strong arms supporting my weight. "Oh, god, you're bleeding!" I hear him say as if from far away, dazed by the pain and feeling a floaty sense of unreality at his closeness as he swings me up in his arms and carries me to the couch.

"No, stay down, don't look, you'll pass out from the blood," his hand presses lightly on my chest to stop me from getting up, "let me have a look at the damage." I close my eyes as he gently lifts my foot, tightening my muscles to stop myself from recoiling from his touch; it hurts so much that the thought of him even breathing on it makes me feel sick.

I can hear his sharp intake of breath, his hands tightening slightly on my calf, and then, without a word, he carefully lowers my leg again, propping it up with a couple of cushions, and I wonder queasily how bad the damage is. 

He must have seen the fear on my face, because he comes to sit next to me, taking my hands in his. "Ok..." he starts haltingly, "you have a couple of large shards of glass stuck in your foot, and what looks like a few smaller bits ground in." 

Oh. That explains the pain, I think, trying not to conjure an image of what my poor foot must look like, because passing out when he's here by my side after so long is not an option. He looks at me with raised eyebrows, so I go on to explain, "The shattered wineglass. I must have stepped on the broken pieces in my rush to the door." 

Ok, that isn't my most articulate explanation ever, but he is used to deciphering my muddled speech, and I know he's worked out the subtext when he gathers me into his arms saying, "Oh, love, I'm so, so, so sorry." I whimper as his knuckles lightly brush my cheek, his voice tight as he says, "I'll be back in a second, don't move, yeah?" 

Starved of his touch, I lean into the contact, my hands flying to his wrist to keep him there. I look up at him, unmindful of how pathetic I must seem as I beg, "Please, don't leave me." I bite my tongue on the 'again' that nearly finds its way out, but I know he can hear it all the same, because his eyes close briefly, his mouth tightening in pain.

"I'm only going to the bathroom to get the first aid kit," he says, gently untangling his hand from mine to brush damp hair from my forehead before leaning in to press dry lips on my clammy skin. When he moves back, he gives me a sad little smile, "Keep your foot still and raised until I get back, ok?" I just nod mechanically, so he gently squeezes my hand, and gets up, shedding his coat and toeing his shoes off as he crosses into the hallway.

I spend the next couple of minutes trying to come to terms with the fact that he is here, he is really here, the lingering warmth of his lips on my forehead dulling the pain radiating from my throbbing foot. Questions bubble up, but I tamp them down again. He is here. He is back. That's all that matters.

When he comes back, first aid kit in his hand and a couple of clean towels folded over his arm, he's wearing a look of grim determination that doesn't bode well, but by the time he sits down again, he's put on what I've come to know as his 'business' face.

With a minimum of fuss, he places the folded towels under my foot, and then pulls a bottle of disinfectant out of the box, "I'm just going to pour this on, I'm worried that if I try to dab it on it'll embed the glass deeper." He reaches to lift my chin and smiles at me, "It's going to be cold, and will probably sting a bit, but try to be still, yeah?"

I nod uncertainly and grit my teeth, hissing as the cold liquid stings its way down my foot and into the towels. Rubbing alcohol gel into his hands, he pulls the sterile tweezers out of their wrapper, and then places my foot, towels and all, on his thigh, holding it down at the ankle with one hand and looking at me uncertainly, knowing I don't do pain very well at all.

"Ok, I'm going to pull the glass out, but I need you to promise me that you won't move a muscle. And whatever you do, don't look. Can you do that for me?" I'm already hyperventilating at the imagined pain, but I grab the cushions in a death grip and nod, closing my eyes as tight as they will go.

Knowing that a countdown will only get me more tense, he just gets on with it. I feel a little tug that resonates like an electric shock, and then there's this sharp, tearing pain, and I jerk almost upright, struggling against his strong hold on my ankle while he makes soothing, shushing noises.

"One down. That should be the worst of it." he says when I fall back down, his hand rubbing soothingly up and down my shin, while I concentrate on breathing to avoid puking all over the couch. Like I said, I don't do pain very well. 

"That was the big shard. It wasn't as deep as I feared, and I don’t think you’ve damaged the tendon, so you shouldn't need stitches. You doing ok?" I nod weakly at him, gulping air in deep greedy grasps, wanting him to get on with it and put me out of my misery, "Just... pull them... out... already." 

"That's my boy!" he says, a smile in his voice, and despite the pain I preen internally at his praise. "Do you want me to give you a breather between them?" I think about it for a second, trying to work out the pros and cons, but in the end, I just want it to be over, so I shake my head and grab one of the cushions, hugging it to me so I can bite on it. 

His grip on my ankle tightens once again, and I steel myself, but now the pain is no longer an unknown, and I know I can take it. He works fast, my muffled cries and the tinkle of glass on the steel dish the only sounds, and to my eternal relief, in no time at all he's dabbing at my foot with something blessedly cool and numbing. 

I relax back on the cushions with a sigh, weak as a kitten and covered in cold sweat, and finally open my eyes, watching as he efficiently applies a sterile dressing and uses an elastic bandage to bind it in place. "There," he smiles, kissing my toes, "all done. No walking on it, though. And you should get it checked tomorrow at the surgery, just in case."

I stare at him feeling as if I'd fallen down the rabbit hole. The way he's looking after me, just as if he'd never left, feels more than a little bit surreal. Have the last two weeks been just a fever dream? 

No, don't get me wrong, this—him here, home, with me—is most emphatically what I want, what I've cried myself to sleep wishing for every single night since he left, but now that I'm no longer buzzing with pain, I can't help but wonder what has brought about this miracle, and how long it will last.

"Are you really back?" I ask him as he gathers all the first aid stuff, piling it onto the bloody towels, the neat freak in him unable to bear a messy room. The question stops him in his tracks, and he looks back at me with something resembling fear in his eyes. 

Taking a deep breath, he places the pile on the coffee table and comes back to sit on the couch, intently studying his hands, "Yes..." His eyes flick up to mine briefly before going on, "if you'll have 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * 

_The silence between us, even if it is of my own making, is unbearable. He tries, he really does try, and I wish he wouldn't. It would be so much easier that way, I could blame it all on him and be done with it. I know this is all on me, but I can't shake this feeling of being trapped in my own life._

_It all started a few weeks ago on my last birthday—the horrifying realisation that I'm hurtling at dizzying speed into my forties. I guess you could call it a mid-life crisis, but it really shook me to the roots of my soul, this fear that my life is passing me by while I stand in place, every lightning fast year the same as the one before._

_Ever since then, I've been struggling to find meaning, becoming restless and surly, and he has become the focus of my frustration. I find myself snapping at him every time he so much as breathes in my direction—in my head, he is the embodiment of the rut my life has become._

_He is all I've ever known. I'm 37 years old, and one way or another he's been there for 30 of them. My best friend, my first and only lover, the one constant in my life. Most of my life I counted these as blessings—now they feel like chains._

_We love one another so much it hurts, yet I feel like I am being choked to death by our love. I know it is not rational. I know that being away from him will be painful—for both of us. That I may be risking what I have with him, his love, his friendship, chasing after a chimera born of my fear of getting old, but feel that if I don't get away soon I'll stifle and die._

_I need to get away. I need to experience myself outside the confines of this life we've created together. It is the only way I'll find out whether this life is truly what I want, or whether it is something I just drifted into, because it's there. Clichéd as it may be, I need to find myself._

_So I've been simmering in the bitter bile of my discontent. Rebuffing his attempts to draw me out, to try and talk things over, to find out what's going on with me. Ignoring his increasingly worried looks and avoiding his touch, putting distance between us, in the cowardly hope that he will leave me and absolve me of my guilt._

_"I can't do this any more." I blurt out from my perch on one end of the sofa, as far as I can possibly be from him while in the same room, weeks of brooding coming to a head. He's pretending to read his book, sitting small and silent to avoid becoming the focus of one of my increasingly frequent diatribes._

_He looks up at my words, and I wince internally at the resigned pain in his eyes. For a brief moment I weaken, and all I want to do is kiss him until we are both dizzy, lose myself in him, let the familiar comfort of his body soothe my fears—but then I steel my resolve._

_I don't much like the man I have become, and the sooner I do something about it the better. I must leave and sort myself out one way or another, because right now, the way I am, I'm making his life a misery._

_"I need to get out of here." I say, getting up, the restlessness in me stirring with the reality of what I'm saying. He watches me pace for a bit, his beautiful eyes clouding with tears, and then he asks, his voice breaking despite his obvious efforts to steady himself, "Are you coming back?"_

_Not 'don't go', not 'don't leave me'. I feel fresh guilt wash over me at this further proof of his unconditional, unselfish love, but the driving need to escape is like a burning pulse in my blood. I shrug my shoulders, shame making me callous, "I don't know."_

_Without another word, I walk to the bedroom—our bedroom, the better part of me whispers accusingly—pack a bag with a few essentials, and, with a last wistful look around the room, square my shoulders and walk out onto the hallway._

_He is waiting for me there, leaning against the wall next to the front door, his eyes full of tears but steady on mine as he watches me pick my coat off the rack and put on my shoes. When I'm done, I pick up my keys and phone, and take the three steps that place me level with him._

_It's only then that he moves to frame my face with his hands, his thumbs brushing lightly over my cheekbones, and then stands on tiptoes, my eyes fluttering closed as he kisses me, my lips salty with his tears, his whispered 'I love you' an absolution._

_"Let me know you're ok. Don't need to call me or anything, just a text will do." he says as our lips part, repeating, as if to himself, "I just need to know you are ok." Without another word, he lets go of me and takes a step back, opening the door for me, and I pick up my bag and walk out, closing the door behind me, trying not to break down at the thought that this may be the last time I see him._

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * 

"Yes." 

I look up at his simple, breathless answer, barely able to believe my ears, and he is smiling as if I've just given him the fucking moon on a plate, joy and love shining behind the unshed tears in his eyes. 

I do not deserve him. 

My heart breaks into a million pieces at his quiet acceptance of my return, without question, without blame, without throwing in my face the needless pain I've caused him, and the only thing that stops me from bolting is the knowledge that if I leave now—again—I will lose him for ever, and losing him would break me—I know that now.

It has taken me two weeks of painful separation to realise that he is my home, my safe place, my rock, my everything. That anything that is good and bright and worthy in my life becomes better, brighter, worthier because of him. That without him my life has no meaning. That the chains of his love are light as silk thread, a welcome tether that grounds me instead of holding me captive. That his trust in me makes me strive to be a better man—for him, for me... for both of us.

"I'm so sorry..." My voice fails me. I can't go on. I look away, abject shame crushing my chest in a vice, feeling unworthy of his love, and he reaches out to touch my face, turning my head until I'm facing him again, "Don't." he says, his voice soft but his eyes assertive, "All I care about is that you're here, that you're ok." He stops and searches my face, his look one of deep concern, "Are you ok?" 

I don't trust my voice, so I give him an uncertain nod, my eyes filling with tears of shame and regret, and, without a word, without hesitation, he takes my hands in his and pulls me to him. I allow myself to fall towards him, his arms closing around me, holding me nestled against his chest, his hand gently stroking my hair, and I just cling to him, my lifeline, soaking the soft fabric of his ratty tee with my tears.

He holds me patiently until I have no more tears, my sobbing gradually dwindling into weak, pitiful whimpers as I struggle to put myself back together. He lets go of me then, his lips brushing my hair, giving me the freedom to move away, allowing me the space to find my balance. With a shaky breath I sit up, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands, wiping the tears off my face on the sleeve of my shirt.

When I finally bring myself to look at him, he repeats his question, "Are you really ok?" and I nod, "I am now." He smiles at me, brushing stray strands of hair behind my ear, "Good." I reach for his hand, holding it against my face, eyes fluttering closed at his touch, and he threads his fingers through mine and pulls our linked hands to his lips to kiss my knuckles, looking at me from under his long lashes.

"Come over here." he commands softly, scooting over to make room for me. I obey with alacrity, moving to sit next to him, and he immediately turns towards me, pretzeling himself to keep his injured foot out of harm's way, slipping under my arm and snaking his arms around me to rest his cheek on my chest with a contented little sigh.

"I..." I start uncertainly, trying to find the words to explain, but he shakes his head, "No. Not yet. Hold me for a bit. Let me just... I need to feel that you're here." His hand clutching a handful of my shirt, he goes on, "I missed you." I wince at the unspoken pain behind his words, and tamp down on my selfish need to unburden my guilt to give him what he needs. 

I hold him close, cherishing the gift of his body against mine, my cheek pillowed on the silken strands of his hair, tension leaching out of me at his closeness. As his familiar snuffly breathing settles into a slow, steady rhythm, I tighten my hold of him, whispering to myself, "I missed you too.” and surrender to the peaceful quality of this moment, the stillness broken only by the sound of our breath and the distant hum of the city traffic. 

We stay like that for a while, content to just hold and be held, my whole being focused on the way he feels in my arms, as soft and relaxed as a kitten, his hand unconsciously kneading the fabric of my shirt in sync with his breath. 

Lack of blood flow eventually puts an end to the quiet interlude. Without warning, he bats at my chest, "Ugh, I need to move, my leg has gone to sleep." I roll my eyes and let go of him, moving aside to give him room to straighten up—I know from prior painful experience how dangerous it is to be in his way when he's flailing about—and then give the offending leg a good rub to get his circulation going, while he quietly swears through the pins and needles.

"Better?" I ask when the swearing finally subsides, my hand still stroking his leg. He nods, "Much. Ta." and flops back with a pout, "Man, I hate pins and needles." I shake my head fondly at his histrionics, muttering, "Drama queen." Predictably, he pokes his tongue at me, fussing until he finds a comfortable position. 

"Now, stay still for a bit," I say once he stops moving, "let me make sure you haven't started bleeding again with all your wriggling about." And for once, he does as he's told, settling back with a sigh while I check the dressing and re-arrange the cushions under his injured foot.

That's when it hits me; that silly, normal, everyday exchange hits me with the force of a four by two to the back of the head. Home. I am home. I can feel the slow smile forming on the wake of this realisation, a bubble of pure joy expanding inside my chest. 

"That's your first real smile in weeks. 'S nice." he says quietly, taking my hand and smiling shyly at me. I know there's no blame attached to his words, yet my smile falters at the unwitting reminder of my unforgivable behaviour, and his face falls, his fingers squeezing mine, "I didn't mean..." 

Oh, God, I'm making a right mess of this!

I make to get up, but his hand holds mine in his strong grip, "No." I look at him, surprised at the vehemence in his tone. “Talk to me." His eyes are steady on mine, his thumb stroking my wrist in soothing circles, but before I can say anything he starts talking again, “Actually, no, me first.” 

With an apologetic little half smile he goes on, “I want you back, here, with me, more than I want anything else in this world, but only if it is what you want too. I will never hold you back if you need to leave. Ever.” He looks away for a moment, his face pensive, and I wait until his eyes return to mine, knowing he’s not done.

“But if you choose to stay, I need all of you back." he goes on, his mouth tightening in determination, "I can see the guilt in your eyes, like a wall between us. Your guilt is no use to me—to us.” I open my mouth to speak, but he presses a finger against my lips, “I don’t need an explanation,” he says softly, shaking his head, “but if it will help you get over this, whatever this is, I’ll listen, because first and foremost I’m your friend.” His hand squeezes mine, “You don’t need my forgiveness, love, you need to forgive yourself.” 

I smile ruefully at his words. That's my beautiful love, no beating about the bush, straight for the jugular. 

“God, I love you." I whisper, leaning in to kiss him lightly, and sigh shakily in gratitude and delight as he welcomes me with parted lips, melting into me, whimpering as he struggles to get closer, putting us both in danger of ending up on our arses on the floor. 

"Hang on, love, hang on a sec." I say, moving back a bit to give myself some room. Slipping my arms under him, I lift him off the sofa carefully to avoid jostling his injured foot, and rearrange us into a sitting position with him comfortably curled up on my lap. 

Throughout the whole manoeuvre his eyes, huge and dark on his face, never leave mine, his arms wound tightly around my neck. It feels like heaven, this newfound intimacy, his body, his touch, both familiar and brand new, making my body come alive. 

But first things first. Yes, he’s right, I am consumed by guilt and, if I don’t exorcise it, if I don't tell him, it will just fester under the surface, poisoning my love for him. 

Ok. Time to man up. 

He doesn’t interrupt me once, doesn't try to rush me on when I falter. He just listens, his eyes darkening with my pain, long fingers twitching ever so slightly against the skin of my neck. 

"You're all I've ever known," I say when I've finished my sorry tale, "you're all I'll ever need." And instead of telling me what a pitiful moron I’ve been, he looks at me, his beautiful eyes bright with his tears, and kisses me—his mouth on mine the sweetest aggression—until I'm dizzy, high on the scent and the taste of him. 

He finally lets go of my lips with a soft peck, and kisses his way to my ear, to whisper, his breath on my skin sending shivers down my spine, "Welcome home, my love."


End file.
